The Principal Accountant General (Audit), Haryana, Onkar Nath today finally nailed the lies of Haryana Government when he told at his press meet that “Land Acquisition Act had been violated to allot land in favour of Rajiv Gandhi Charitable Trust at Gurgaon”.

Nath told that in addition, “the real estate developer DLF India was given land for about Rs 1700 crores instead of over Rs 2100 crores by “miscalculating” the amount due thus causing a loss of over Rs 400 crores to the state”. He also informed that 15 Haryana legislators had claimed travel expenses running into several lakhs for the same period that they had availed free travel facility. He also had a dig at the state financial management saying that the report suggests "fiscal mismanagement" in Haryana.

Coming to the land allotted to Rajiv Gandhi Trust which is headed by UPA Chairperson, Ms Sonia Gandhi, Nath said that “In this case Section 4 and 5 of Land Acquisition Act had already been invoked for acquisition of land and for seeking objections before acquiring this land belonging to Panchayat. Section 6 too had been invoked for giving compensation to land owners. It was at this stage that rules were changed in less than a month’s period and undue favour given to the Rajiv Gandhi Charitable Trust that had made an application for allotment of land”. He said that the CAG report was placed in state Assembly on March 11 and now it will be sent to Public Accounts Committee for necessary action.

Though the Haryana Government has been defending allotment of land to the Trust, but its own Haryana Land Release Policy, 2007, says that the State Government can release land from the acquisition process for exceptionally justifiable reasons only. During 2007 to 2012 out of 15,331 acres of land notified for acquisition, 2,476 acres was released to land owners.

The Rajiv Gandhi Charitable Trust issue relates to a notification to acquire 166 acres of land in Ullahwas village of Gurgaon district. This chunk of land was being acquired for developing residential and commercial sectors at Gurgaon. In this case, the said Trust asked the Panchayat to lease it five acres for opening an eye hospital. The state government approved the proposal of the Panchayat to lease the land following which the Trust applied to the town and country planning department for change of land use